News Briefs: Mr. CANsas Pageant results, new “Pothole Czar” position and Boy Scouts of America declares bankruptcy

East

Senior Will Green won East’s third annual Mr. CANsas pageant representing Choir on Wednesday, Feb. 19 in the auditorium.

In front of the stage, plastic bins were set up for each contestant with their photo on them. Each member of the audience brought at least two cans as their admittance to the show, afterwards putting their cans in whoever’s bin they thought should win the pageant.

The winner was the contestant that received the most canned goods in their bin — hence the title, Mr. CANsas.

Canned goods brought by the pageant attendees were donated to the Jewish Family Services so they could be distributed to those in need.        

“The whole goal is that we get people from a lot of different groups and clubs and all that so we can get just as many cans as possible,” senior SHARE Exec Ella Higgins said.

There were 13 senior boys that participated in the event, each representing a different sport or club at East. 

In order to persuade the audience to put cans into their bins, the seniors participated in three events: candidate runway, interviews and talent show. 

During the candidate runway category, contestants showed off their individual styles — senior Phillip Clemente representing lacrosse won “best dressed” by wearing a Left Shark costume. Then, they were each interviewed on various topics, including questions pertaining to canned goods that were almost always answered with “chicken noodle soup — it’s a classic.” Finally, they prepared a special talent to present. The talents varied from singing to reading poetry to a Star Wars inspired lightsaber duel.  

Green performed the song “Vienna” by Billy Joel and won the Mr. CANsas pageant with a total of 40 cans.

Local

Mayor of Kansas City Quinton Lucas shared his plans for a new position dedicated to maintaining the roads in his first State of the City address. He has coined the position as the “Pothole Czar.” 

During his State of the City address, Lucas mentioned that he wants to prioritize infrastructure to make the city safer.

“We’re not doing enough preventative maintenance to stop problems before they get bad enough to require emergency repairs,” Lucas said in the address.

The new position will work on prioritizing road projects, addressing current infrastructure issues, encouraging better coordination with city departments and creating easier ways for the public to report issues with the roads to fix them as swiftly as possible.  

Lucas has assigned City Manager Earnest Rouse with finding someone to fill the “Pothole Czar” position.  

However, there is conflict against the new position because the “Pothole Czar’s” roles already belong to the Public Works Director. But Lucas believes that adding the position will address existing road problems faster.   

Lucas also brought the budget for resurfacing streets for this year up to $17 million, which is a 70% increase from what it was two years ago.   

So far in 2020, about 1,910 pothole cases have been reported and almost 800 have been repaired. The new “Pothole Czar,” according to the address, will set out to further reduce that gap.

National

Boy Scouts of America declared bankruptcy due to accumulated debt from hundreds of sexual abuse lawsuits within the organization on Feb. 18. 

BSA has been around for 110 years, but in the past 72 years, the organization believes that 7,800 former leaders were involved in sexually abusing over 12,000 scouts. The lawsuits from victims of abuse threw the BSA into debt between $100 million and $500 million, according to CNN.

“I was just bewildered to be honest,” said freshman Life Boy Scout Wyatt Oligmueller. “I didn’t quite understand why this was happening and I had never heard of it before.”

When the BSA filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy — reorganization of the debtors’ business affairs, debts and assets — they contacted the “Scouting Family” (parents, scouts, volunteers, etc.) through email, informing the families that their main objectives for filing bankruptcy were to “equitably compensate victims who were harmed during their time in Scouting and continue to carry out Scouting’s mission for years to come.”

According to the BSA, about 90% of the abuse instances against the organization took place over thirty years ago. The organization is currently implementing policies to prevent future abuse and hold child safety as paramount.

One-on-one interactions between scouts and adult leaders are now banned and the adult volunteers will have mandatory background checks. The kids will also be trained so they can respond to and prevent abuse. Reporting suspected abuse to law enforcement will be mandatory.  

“We believe victims, we support them, we pay for counseling by a provider of their choice and we encourage them to come forward,” the BSA told the “Scouting Family.”